Shot To The Heart
by ectograsp
Summary: Regina and Robin: a collection of one-shots. Who said villains didn't get a second chance?
1. Arrow

'Show yourself, you winged freak!'

She'd been expecting one of that green bitch's mutants, and to be frank, she wanted it. Back in this dingy dump of a town with Henry looking at her like the nice mayor lady who gave him advice about his 'mom' when he wasn't looking right through her, and a deranged villainess playing with her memories, she would have loved to pick off a few demon apes. She figured she'd roast the first one she saw a' la fireball and if that wasn't efficient enough she'd conjure up a throwing spear and go hunting to perfect her monkey killing technique; leave them wriggling on skewers throughout the forest like bugs pinned to cards for the Wicked Witch to find in interesting degrees of dismemberment. She'd make a goddamn anatomical study and scatter them like puzzle pieces so their mistress could have fun deducing the combined terrors in store for her once she was caught.

Not really, of course, because the monkeys were ostensibly still people underneath it all and Regina wasn't evil anymore. It was nice to fantasize about, though. She may be great at the insidious plotting and strategic side of things, but she was wired for action and without something to destroy, her veins itched.

But instead of a screeching monster flying at her face, she got an arrow. Which was a little bit hilarious, but mainly irritating. Many people had tried to kill her in a vast myriad of ways, but it was a long time since anyone had gone as insultingly low-tech as an arrow. It was like trying to kill a dragon with a butter knife. The fletching was plastic, for fuck's sake.

Plucking it out of the air, she turned to face her attacker with a scoff; expecting Granny or some other well-intentioned villager who probably still believed she was responsible for the lost year and fancied themselves a day of vigilante justice. Instead, an unfamiliar man emerged from behind a tree and waved a hand apologetically.

'Apologies, milady!' he called, and he started striding towards her. 'I thought you were the Wicked Witch.'

Fabulous. Another accented refugee who went around playing the gentleman. Next thing you know he'll be falling in love with Emma Swan and refusing to ever change his clothes.

'And I thought you were a flying monkey,' she retorted. She was impressed with herself; for her, that's practically congenial considering that he'd essentially just made an attempt on her life. Henry would be proud.

Anyone who knew her would recognize the level of restraint implicit in that reply, but she was aware she probably sounded a bit pissed off to the casual observer, and the strange man ducked his head. 'I do hope my mistake hasn't cost me my head… Your Majesty.'

Well, now. She couldn't help it; her lips twitched. He was teasing her! No one had been brave enough to tease her in ages and here he was calling her 'Your Majesty' the same way you call a cat a lion; for the cat's sake, trying not to smile. 'So, you know who I am,' she observed – curious. He didn't seem to think she was dangerous. Had he heard different rumours than the entire rest of the Enchanted Forest population?

'Your reputation in the Enchanted Forest precedes you,' he said, drawing to a stop in front of her. Funny; most people who knew of her reputation looked at her with dread, disdain or – if they identified closer to the villain end of the good/evil spectrum – mercenary interest. This stranger sounded almost impressed, in a 'you've-certainly-made-a-name-for-yourself' way – she really couldn't see a touch of fear, which was interesting. He didn't seem to think she was dangerous.

Was he an idiot?

He was better looking up close. Tall, with that perfect, thick, obedient hair that some men had without even trying (the bastards), in the same nut brown as the stubble on his jaw. Warm, dark brown eyes that made the whole of his face look kind; not in the sappy way that David did, where you just knew he'd cry over roadkill – but in a way that made her think his lack of fear was rooted in a conscious unwillingness to judge her based on anyone's experience but his own.

It was odd; meeting someone who knew of her and didn't automatically assume they were enemies.

'I didn't catch your name.' Regina raised her brows.

'Robin – of Locksley. At your service.' With that, he held out a gloved hand for her to return the arrow, eyes boring into hers – a challenge. To give him the arrow would be to call him ally just after he'd revealed he was the bane of the royal treasury, back in the day.

He knew who she was, and he hadn't shot her. Did she really have room to judge?

Did she really care?

She dropped the arrow into his hand. 'The thief…' she mused, watching his expression. She'd thought he might grin, take a bow – he seemed the confident type. She didn't exactly expect him to smack his hand to his forehead in sudden realization that he'd revealed himself and run off in fright; he didn't seem the running type either.

To her surprise, he looked almost disappointed. Perhaps not that she knew who he was – no doubt he'd expected that – but that she'd focused on the 'thief' part. The 'we were once, for all intents and purposes, enemies' part. Though she hadn't meant it that way – not as a jab. Not as an insult. She thought, though, that she might see where his understanding came from. No doubt he was used to people looking at the famous thief with scorn, whether they knew where he came from or what his reasons were or not. She could relate.

'Well,' he drawled; 'as we're tossing labels around, aren't you technically known as the Evil Queen?'

For a split second, her heart sank. She'd ruined it. But oh, he was smiling, that jackass!

'I prefer Regina,' she replied, and for a moment she was sure they were both struggling not to smile. Struggling not to smile – ha. Of all the struggles she'd had, that was an unexpected one.

'You think you can bring down the Wicked Witch with sticks?' she taunted.

She felt a hum of anticipatory glee in her blood; nothing riled up a man like reducing his beloved weapons to the bits of wood and metal they really were and casting aspersions on his ability to kill things. This Robin Hood was supposed to be a legendary archer (that shot he'd taken before would have gone between her eyes if she'd been slower) so surely his ego was quite wrapped up in his skill with those 'sticks'. A skill she'd never been all that impressed with, to be honest. Snow White was a pretty famous archer and she'd only started as an adult on the run from Regina, with no real training – how hard could it be?

'Well, I'm certainly going to try,' he answered politely, completely unprovoked. Hmm.

'I'm afraid we're too late. She's long gone.'

'Well perhaps she left a trail!'

'… I was hoping the same thing.'

She knew what he was going to say before he said it.

'Well then, you've got yourself a partner.'

She didn't particularly want one; she worked best alone, as solitude required no explanations or mollycoddling or being nice to people – but it could have been worse. Team Hero could have stuck her with Snow, whose already questionable investigative virtues would have been severely addled by what was shaping up to be an astoundingly acute case of pregnancy brain; Regina had watched her put salt in her coffee that morning at the diner. They could have sent along David, whose presence required a constant level of energy-draining restraint in response to all that condescension. Hook and Emma were slightly less aggravating as temporary partners, but the pirate's never-ending barrage of sarcasm and unhelpful asides would probably have proved more debilitating than useful, especially now that he's ingrained enough into the 'good' side that murdering him outright would upset the others enough to hinder the killing of the actual villain. Emma's presence would just have been painful; Regina has to admit, the woman has been uncharacteristically graceful about the Henry of it all, but nothing can change the fact that as things stand, she's a walking reminder of what Regina no longer has.

The point is, if fate was going to interfere in the form of a partner she didn't really need, she could do worse than Robin of Locksley. He might smell like pine scented car air freshener, but he also seemed willing to listen to her and there was a severe shortage of people that smart in Storybrooke.

It made for a nice change.

'Just… don't get in my way,' she warned him.

'I wouldn't dream of it.'

He sounded sincere. And he had this look. It was like he was constantly on the verge of breaking into a grin. Was he laughing at her?

It was just too strange. She wasn't used to men treating her like she wasn't a big bad dangerous monster or a little girl who had wandered off the path and needed a hand to hold. The only guy she truly liked was her son.

Maybe that was it. Because in a way, this guy reminded her a bit of Henry. That incomprehensible faith that had baffled and frightened her because she certainly hadn't given it to him, which meant it had grown inside of him like a seed and couldn't be repressed with a stern word or a grounding; it was in his blood to believe the best of people and she was proud of him, now, but for a long time it had terrified her – there was nothing she had ever been able to say or do to make him believe her Evil Queen rhetoric, and that made her doubt it too. She'd thought it was a kid thing; a Henry thing. Were some people just born like that?

_I wouldn't dream of it. _

Everyone wanted to get in her way. Nobody trusted her – that was the way things worked. And yet she realized, even in acknowledgment of the utter unexpectedness of how much he didn't seem to hate her – she had, in a way, expected him to say that.

'Have…,' she started uncertainly; 'have we met before?'

This expression, this look she knows. This is a man who thinks a woman just said something completely ridiculous.

'I doubt I'd _ever_ forget meeting you.'


	2. Simon

'_See? Not so scary. Now you have a new toy.'_

_Roland calls the monkey Simon._

_Robin's not sure where he heard the name, nor why he likes it so much; or why he deems it immediately perfect for a soft, rotund grey monkey with ostentatious ears and a round stub of a tail. It looks nothing like the winged monster from which it originated, which was no doubt its creator's intention; the terror of the real beast lay foremost in its loud, predatory screech and vicious fangs, yet the toy is mouthless and utterly unthreatening; he would go so far as to say cute. The kind of thing you'd expect a child to give a saccharine moniker like Fluffy or Paws; though Roland was somewhat conscious of his being constantly surrounded by big tough men carrying weapons, and if anything Robin would have expected something along the lines of Spike or Fang. But no – in the hour after his near miss with the real, more evil counterpart, Roland had clutched that monkey to his chest like it was his baby, even as Robin insisted on carrying him in sort of the same manner, at least for a while, because his son had nearly been eaten by a monkey and he couldn't let go. _

_At first he'd stared at it in awe, clearly impressed by the queen's trick. The awe had soon given way to a child's usual joy at being given a new toy. Roland had a vivid imagination and loved to play, but on the road that usually meant sword-fighting with sticks and pretending to shoot at rabbits with a bow and arrow. Games he loved and was constantly joined in by each of the Merry Men in turn, who loved to let him win or pretend to die from a shot to the heart in dramatic fashions. They died so often and so enthusiastically that Robin feared they could all be killed in front of him and Roland would laugh and tell them to do it again._

_Having something he could touch and keep and give a name to, even take care of a little, was different. It was special; it was a child who was used to being the smallest and most vulnerable, with something even smaller and more vulnerable to protect. And after a few minutes of examination - touching the monkey's cool black nose with a finger; rubbing the silky pale fuzz of his ears and patting the darker fur on his body; holding him at arm's length for a full body view and nodding in satisfaction – Roland had put his face close to Robin's ear and whispered; 'He's called Simon.'_

_His son loves to make people laugh – it makes him feel grown up and clever and whenever he makes a joke the dimples in his chin near split his face with glee – but when he's being solemn, to laugh at him is to crush his pride so badly he doesn't smile for days, and so Robin had raised an eyebrow at his small, serious son and said, in a thoughtful tone; 'Simon?'_

'_Yes.'_

'_How did you decide on that?'_

'_Well he looks like he's Simon,' Roland had said proudly, looking between his father and the toy as though inviting him to see the obvious._

_Robin took another glance at the monkey. It was fat, scruffy and soft; the name 'Simon', to him, brought to mind stuffed-shirt court scribes in lacy collars whose voices squeaked. And yet Roland apparently meant it as a kind of compliment._

'_He does too,' Robin had smiled. 'I like it.'_

_He carries the monkey around for the rest of the night. It sits next to him at the campfire and he falls asleep with his face buried in it like a pillow. Robin watches him, because it's completely adorable and Roland has never had many toys – they move around so much. He's suddenly realizing his son might have been missing out on something he really enjoys, and he vows to buy Roland a bear or something to add to his collection when next they come across a toymaker._

_Because he is so often looking at Roland, he notices the queen looking at him too. She has a truly exquisite face, but she's keeping up a haughty expression with the steely resolve of a soldier marching through the night. Its only variation comes in the rolling of her eyes whenever Little John opens his mouth – he seems to have been caught in the queen's bad books like a fly in a trap, and Robin fears for his friend's life. A touch of smugness rises like a blush whenever she says something she thinks is truly clever – to be fair, most of what she says is clever, so he can't call her ego unfounded. And once or twice, when she thought no one was looking – and perhaps no one is, when they're not checking to see if she's doing anything 'evil' – he thinks he might have seen her true feelings. _

_She's sad. Everything she says, everything on her face, is meant to hide it. But every time she feels unwatched, she cracks a little from the strain of it all, and he sees her face go soft and regretful and fill with grief. The only other time he's seen her look at all real instead of like some painted stone thing is when she sees that Roland truly adores that little monkey – that, he has seen, can make her smile. A secret smile – he's not sure if she'd rather keep her sadness private or the fact that she can still smile in the midst of it, but she tries to hide them both – perhaps even from herself. Not well enough. He saw her when Roland cackled with laughter as Belle made Simon dance on her knees; for a split second, before she hurried the smile off her face like a stray dog off a street, she lit up. Robin isn't sure what he thinks about her elaborate hairdo and the jewellery that's probably worth a whole palace itself and the dress that turns her body into a formidable looking weapon – it's striking, but she doesn't look entirely comfortable in it. When she smiles though, he understands why even those who hated the evil queen grudgingly called her beautiful. He can't make himself really dislike her, after he sees that. That even drowning in grief, she can be made to smile by the simple sight of seeing his son happy._

'_You're not going after her, are you?'_

_Robin turns just as the flame on his torch springs to life; Little John is looking at him with disbelief, and he sighs._

'_Of course I'm going after her.'_

_It's been five minutes since Regina strode off to make her way alone into the castle. Enough time that he can track her easily and catch up by the time she reaches the gate – all he has to do is stay unnoticed until she shows him where the entrance is, and then it's too late to send him back – he can just threaten to follow her._

'_But she's the Evil Queen!' Little John splutters._

_His friend is a gentleman, but he's always had something of a grudge against the queen. It came of too many nights running in the mud on no sleep from those merciless automatons, the black knights. He'd not minded the knights so much – he wasn't one to blame a soldier for the orders of their liege – but the queen he had a bone to pick with, because after all, there were worse thieves out there – murderers, rapists, plunderers – yet she focused her efforts on them, because they stole from the rich, and she was the richest of them all. _

'_And I'm a godforsaken thief, in the common vernacular – as are you, though I'm slightly more famous. Life is more complicated than titles, John.'_

_He believed that. There'd been a time when he hated the queen too – nights when he'd wondered if he'd die in the forest because of a bit of gold. It had been easy to hate her when he'd been running for hours with no end in sight; when he stitched up his own battle wounds over old scars that had been made over older ones still; when he lost a man to the never-ending struggle to stay a step ahead of the law. _

_It was less easy when she was a flesh and blood woman who saw him holding out a hand to help her up and glared like he'd reached out to slide a knife between her ribs instead. When she wore her clothes like they were armour and used words like a whip and had the softest eyes of anyone he'd ever met. When she saved his son – which was a debt he could never erase – and then made him something to soothe his fears, just because she could. Just because to see a child hurt was something she couldn't bear, and to see a child happy made her crack open. _

'_Fine, I'll give you complicated,' Little John conceded. 'She's the Evil Queen – and she's a rude, cantankerous snob besides!'_

'_She saved Roland. She didn't have to do that,' Robin reminded him. _

'_Even some of the worst people out there have soft spots for children, Robin. It doesn't make her any better than whatever evil is putting up that shield.'_

'_Whoever put up that shield has sent fanged flying monsters after her, indiscriminately. To kill children or whoever gets in their way.'_

'_She's a witch.'_

_Up until a few days ago, that's what he had believed of the Evil Queen. When her name had brought to mind blood and sweat and black armour and wanted posters calling for his capture, dead or alive. But now he saw Roland's smile as he clutched that fat, furry monkey; her hidden smile as she watched him. She might not be a good witch exactly, but he didn't think she was the black witch people made her out to be, and what kind of thief would he be if he weren't able to see in shades of grey?_


End file.
